Once Upon a Time: Jennifer Morrison on Emma's 'Complicated' Love Life and the New, Dark Threat

Once Upon a Time‘s family tree got a lot more contorted when the ABC drama revealed that Rumplestiltskin’s long-lost son and Emma’s baby daddy are one and the same. The same episode ended with a grim bombshell, that The Dark One learned long ago from a seer that the “young boy” who reunites him with Bae would be his “undoing” — to which Rumple shrugged, “Then I’ll just have to kill him.”

TVLine spoke with Jennifer Morrisonabout Emma’s reunion with her first love Neal (and what it means for any potential “Hook-up”) and the dark cloud hanging over Henry, as Season 2 resumes Sunday at 8/7c.

TVLINE | So, Rumplestiltskin’s son is also Henry’s dad and Emma’s ex (played by Michael Raymond-James). Do you feel the show is strongest when dealing with these tangible family dysfunctions, albeit in a fantastical context?
It’s an unbelievable family tree, and when you really start to dive into those relationships and the connections between those people and the relationships between those people, it really starts to come to life. As an actor, that’s what excites me, to get to play with and figure out the best possible way to bring that stuff to life.

TVLINE | What I liked about “Manhattan” is that characters had a chance to, like, stop and breathe. I’m watching the scene in the bar, thinking, “This is really great, because Emma and Neal are just talking like people talk.” There’s no mystical mumbo jumbo going on.
There is sort of an interesting relief about having a breath in the real world, where there is no magical solution to something. It’s just real people with real problems and they’re going to have to deal with it — and Emma, I always feel like she’s a different person when she’s taken by surprise. She’s worked so hard to build a tough exterior in order to protect herself, based on all the things she’s been through in her life, that she is always her most vulnerable and her most vulnerably honest when she’s taken by surprise, because she doesn’t have time to process her thoughts or to put that wall up. It allows for a lot of stuff to come out of her that we don’t normally get to see.

TVLINE | We were left with quite the reveal, in what the seer told Rumplestiltskin…
There’s now this looming threat, basically, on Henry’s life that no one’s aware of, and it’s something I think they’re setting up to pay off over time. It’s also interesting because the Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold character has really evolved — we’ve gotten to see two very different sides of this man, even in the Storybrooke world. He does have this love for Belle and he does have capacity to be good, and yet he’s also got this capacity to be darker than anyone else. He’s also made true on his deals with Emma, so oftentimes Emma does end up aligning with him, knowing it’s like “the devil you know or the devil you don’t.” With him, there’s a certain, almost bizarre “code of ethics” to his evil.

TVLINE | But like you just said, we the audience now have to somehow reconcile that with the fact that he has this longer term plan that does not bode well for little Henry.
He does, yeah — and if there’s anything we know about Gold, it’s that he will do whatever it takes to save himself. That is obviously the most foreboding, knowing that if Henry is a threat to his life, he will definitely be a threat to Henry’s.

TVLINE | Is the story moving forward about Emma coming around to Neal’s point of view on why he bailed on her back in the day? He’s laid out his case.
It’s a lot for her to take in all at once, and she doesn’t really have time to process any of it because so much happens so quickly, immediately after getting this information. I do think there is some sort of closure in her mind, having the explanation that he wasn’t just screwing her over. But that doesn’t change the fact that he still made a decision to not be with her, to allow her to suffer even more by letting her go to prison. In her mind, when there is love that was as true as what she had for him, you choose love. You don’t choose the person who comes to you and tells you, “Well, she’s got a job to do.” It’s why it’s hard for her to completely forgive her parents for giving her up, like she said early in this season. “Yes, you did what you thought was right for everyone else, but what about what was right for me? I would have been in a curse, but I would have been with you.”

TVLINE | That was a great point she made.
She seems to always be the victim of that particular circumstance, which is someone making a decision for the greater good and her having to serve the greater good, instead of anyone taking care of her or letting her take care of herself.

TVLINE | Has Emma unwittingly leveled the playing field with regards to Regina? Is Regina going to seize an opportunity to prey on Henry’s hurt?
On some level. But unfortunately for Regina at this point, she is so wrapped up in her own sort of mess that’s going on with her mother… and her failing at trying to not use magic … that she sort of misses seeing her opportunity. She does make a move to get him back, but she doesn’t necessarily make the most strategic move based on the circumstances.

TVLINE | As we have seen, she and Cora have a much larger, nastier endgame going on.
This is [creators] Eddy [Kitsis] and Adam [Horowitz] doing such a great job of seeing the complications of human nature, which is that she still has a love for her mother, despite all the terrible things that have happened. It makes that situation incredibly complicated for her. Regina is incredibly powerful and she has found ways to push her mother out of her life, but now that she’s back … it’s hard for her not to be seduced by that idea of maternal love again.

TVLINE | Adam told me that Emma’s love life is going to become “really complicated” — care to elaborate?
[Laughs] I think it’s becoming incredibly complicated, incredibly slowly. Nothing happens quickly for Emma in love, unfortunately. Neal has someone in his life (played by The Walking Dead‘s Sonequa Martin-Green), so even though Emma’s saying she doesn’t care for him, you see that glimpse of, “Oh, I really don’t want to hear about this guy having someone he’s in love with.” In the meantime, obviously there’s always been a connection, some kind of “kindred spirit” element, between Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and Emma.

TVLINE | Well, I was going to ask about Hook, because I know that while he comes with lots of baggage, here he is now, freshly betrayed by Cora and Regina. Maybe he’ll look to align with the forces of good for a bit?
I’ll be interested to see what happens with that, because we haven’t gotten to a point yet to see what that decision is. He’s so caught up in his own need to have revenge against Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold for what he did to Milah. All we know is that Emma does definitely feel a connection to him because she also started out as a thief, she also started out as abandoned in certain ways, she also lost love at a young age…. They have all these things in common, so as much as she sees him as someone she needs to keep under control or keep away from her son for sure at this point, there’s an undeniable connection between them as well.

I really, really hate the idea of her and hook. After all the emotional trauma she’s been through why can’t she actually want a semi decent guy. I’m not saying a knight on white horse or a prince but at the very least a decent peasant boy……it worked for Princess Bride.

I just wish they’d show Hook is a semi-decent guy. They had so many opportunities and they let them all go. There is still a glimmer of hope in some things he does (when he tells Emma he wouldn’t have betrayed her). I think they would make for an excellent couple so long as Hook does have a decent side, but its just been buried deep down due to his hatred for Gold and the loss of Milah. I really hope his whole bad guy thing is just an act to cover up that he really was hurt by losing Milah.

It could make for a very interesting dynamic to see Emma help him see the good in him. Lets be honest, the chemistry is amazing. Reminds me of bit of Veronica and Logan (Veronica Mars).

I’m not hugely into the idea of Emma and Hook (or Emma and any of the guys we’ve met so far, for that matter), but I have to take a moment here to defend Logan and Veronica. Personally, I think the only reason they didn’t end up together is because the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger. I imagine that if Rob Thomas and Co. had been allowed to finish the story naturally, they would have.

A decent peasant boy…like the Huntsman? I know someone will come along and tell me to get over it, he’s dead. But I haven’t liked any of the love interests for Emma as much as I liked Graham. And the connections to Snow and Charming made it even better for me. Oh well.

Dread Pirate Roberts. Yes, I am aware. It was a joke and an allusion to a line from Robin Hood: Men in Tights wich also starred Carey Elwes. I refer to Neal, August and Hook as the the Scarecrow, Lion and Tinman. You know, Neal needs a brain, August some courage and Hook a heart. I don’t like any of the three of them and since Graham is dead i think we should probably just get her a new love interest.

Agreed. I don’t get the continued hyping of the Emma/Hook romance. A fling, maybe, as part of one of Hook’s ill-fated revenge schemes. But is NO ONE ELSE creeped out that Hook is basically Henry’s step-grandfather?

Hook stole away Emma’s first love’s mom (even if she was kinda skanky) and by-proxy got her killed, which it seems prompted Killian/Hook to head to Neverland to seek revenge on Rumple, one would guess by killing Baelfire since it was over Miliah abandoning the kid that Rumple killed her. (Assuming Hook someone knew Baelfire would be there, but maybe that became a plan after he found the kid there – seems unlikely Baelfire wouldn’t have seen Hook’s tattoo). Either way, and whether Neal is Peter Pan or not, presumably Hook is responsible for that “knife wound” he’s got on his arm, and stabbing 14 year old kids is not cool!

Emma wanting to get back at Neal for leaving her and now throwing a fiancee in her face would be understandable, but that would be one f’kd up way of trying to level the playing field, betrayal-wise. The pseudo-incestuous nature of that potential relationship should just be wrong. Which, I suppose, may be incentive for a one-night-stand, just to up the angst meter for Emma and Neal. One hopes Emma wouldn’t actually know she was shagging the guy who shagged the mom of the guy who knocked her up!

Ok I would like to comment. This is just about how I view the characters and not about shipping and I’m not trying to be mean. I guess I believe in taking responsibility for your own actions. Hook did not steal Milah away. She choose and wanted to go with him. The stealing is how Rumple views it because its too painful to think she choose someone else. Hook did provide the means for sure but Milah choose. The only person responsible for Milah’s death is Rumple. He MURDERED his wife and the mother of his child. Regardless of what you think of Milah(and I don’t think much) she did not deserved to be killed. If Milah hadn’t of left with Hook it would have been someone else.She wanted out of her marriage. I personally do not see Hook as a step grandfather and their is no blood relationship. Hook as he is now should not be with Emma. He is too focused on his vengeance. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he shouldn’t be offered redemption. If you offer it to Regina and Gold who we have seen kill people then you have to offer it to Hook. He may or may not take it. I believe Jennifer is right. If Neal really loved her he would have stayed and fought for her. He didn’t have true love. Charming never gave up on Snow. To me at this point I don’t want Emma with Neal or Hook.

No. I don’t find it creepy. Hook and Milah were not married. Even if they were, he’s not a blood relative. Now if we found out that Hook was somehow related to Emma (Snow’s uncle or something), then it’d be creepy. Since he’s not a relative though, then no, not at all creepy.

Thank you Sadie for pointing this out. I’m sick of people hyping the family connection thing too. If you’re going that route, all the guys in SB that people want Emma to be with are 200 plus years old. People are taking the family tree too literally. Get over it. You had to get over it on Lost and you’ll have to get over it now or stop watching

Imagine Snow, speaking to Charming:
” Our daughter is dating the man who slept with Henry’s grandmother. The same man who flirted and made sexual innuendos to me in front of you.”
,,,
It’s too sickening to think about Emma / Hook.

But none of this happened at the same time at any point? And when they did occur, no one involved had any idea of each other. You use the term “grandmother” in the linear real world sense, as if the age difference is an important factor in this specific fantasy story where people don’t age for 300 years and can use magic…

The show at its core is about this dysfunctional family all inter-connected. (The writers even recently said this at Paleyfest 2013). If you have such a hard time accepting this, you’re going to complaining about this until the series is over lol.

Since there is zero blood connection I couldn’t care less that Hook was with Milah who is Henry’s grandmother plus it was like 200-300 years ago. I love the chemistry between hook and emma so far its the best (aside from Graham). Plus they challenge each other and are vastly entertaining.

Hah isn’t it interesting how you say that and colin’s inspiration for hook is dread pirate roberts/westley? I love what Jennifer said. Neal chose to leave her. He belongs in the past. There’s so much more to Hook we haven’t seen. I’m very interested in what happens between Hook and Emma.

Thank you so much for this interview! I love reading interviews with Jennifer because she’s always so insightful and thoughtful with her answers. =) I’m glad she pointed out the one thing that always makes me the most sad for Emma: “She seems to always be the victim of that particular circumstance, which is someone making a decision for the greater good and her having to serve the greater good, instead of anyone taking care of her or letting her take care of herself.” I feel like Emma is the one who paid the greatest price for that curse and that’s so sad for her because she’s the one person from FT land who had the least to do with it and didn’t deserve her circumstances. I’m hoping she gets a little happiness at some point because she’s way overdue! Thanks again for the interview and I’m looking forward to watching the live stream for Paleyfest this weekend!! =)

I would like to see more scenes with Emma and Regina again. They have such an interesting dynamic and it was one of the strong points of season 1. I hope once Cora’s story has reached its turning point they an get back to that.

Yeah, that’s what they said before “Emma needs to take Henry, because CORA!” except now we know that Rumple, having already threatened the Charmings and Henry’s lives before the trip, is even more dangerous than he was before to him.

There’s also her murderous tendencies that make the rest of the family nervous. I mean, she did kill Grandpa Leopold and tried to kill Grandma Snow, while she was HER legal guardian, AND Emma. There are some legitimate concerns about her methods of conflict resolution.

*HEADDESK* No, that’s not how it works. Stepparents are NOT legal guardians, even while married to the child’s parents. And all ‘familial’ relationships dissolve when the marriage does. Which means that at no point was Regina ever Snow’s legal guardian and there is no relationship to each other since Leopold’s death. Especially since Snow was AT LEAST 22 when Leopold died.

thank you for this interview! jennifer always gives such insightful answers which makes it visible that she really knows who emma is. personally, i love the hook & emma relationship so far and am looking forward to much more!

This is a great interview! Thanks for such great questions! As a fan of Captain Hook, I’m especially grateful for the update on him, too!

This gives me hope for how I hope my favorite character might factor in to the show’s future. I’d love to see them do a whole lot more, with him! It’d be interesting to see how/whether over time, what they’ll do with him.

I would love to see a Hook/Emma romance, but that’s just my own druthers. If they don’t do that, I would like to at least see them be close friends.

The writers are so great, and this has the potential to have some good glue for sustaining some good stuff for a long time to come. I’m hooked!

It’s weird how Emma’s love interests are both 300+ years old. I wonder if that makes her question why a 300 year old man was interested in a 16/17 year old girl. Also why Hook is so interested in someone who is essentially the mother of his step-grandson.

Neal tells Emma in the next epi that he went to Neverland before the LWoM, which is how he knows Hook. I suppose the beans must take you where your heart desires, so after Rumple let go, Bae ended up in Neverland. No idea how he got to his world or when in relation to the curse, but he spent “a couple hundred years” in Neverland. It’s less creepy, I think, Neal’s interest in Emma since he was 14 for those centuries and presumably OUAT Neverland has the same forgetting magic as Berrie’s. Obviously, Neal was in the same sort of arrested development that Emma is at 28, so it’s difficult to be too hard on him for falling for a 17 year old girl, even if it is illegal in Oregon! Hook’s interest in her will become far more creepy than Neal’s when he finds out that Neal is Henry’s father, which I expect Hook will take full advantage of, before Emma wises up to the meaning of his “Milah” tattoo. Since Snow had a one-night-stand with the town man-whore under the curse, Emma may, indeed, hook up with the pirate before realizing just what a mess she’s gotten herself into!

I was still on the fence on whether or not I should return to the show. Since it still sounds like Neal is the main love interest, I will remain out for now. Cannot stand him. At all. I guess I will watch the episode with Graham (i.e. only character I love besides Hatter). Hook seems semi interesting but not enough to draw me back in.

Actually Neal is just a guest star and everything is pointing to Hook and Emma. Parallels to Snow/Charming, parallels to one another and the most important of Hook is a series regular while Neal is a guest star.

No he’s a guest star, recurring guest star, it’s under his credit on the credits and PR’s. He’s basically playing a guest star with a long arc. That is what is under the official media PR and as well in the credits.

It would be a very long post if I explained the parallels but they definitely exists and to Snow/Charming Hook and Emma have 40+ parallels and they keep on adding up and to each other Hook and Emma have also a crap ton of parallels to one another and it’s all on purpose.

You mean like all of the parallels between Emma & Regina? Or the Beauty and Beast parallels between Belle and Red? We’re fans, we look for them. But most of them are unintentional. Otherwise the writers would be teasing Swan Queen or Red Beauty or almost in every episode too.

I know Michael Raymond James is filming through the end of the season, but he’s never been called a “series regular”, not to my knowledge anyway. I’m already tired of the drama around Rumplestiltskin and Belle. Nuff’s nuff. If they want to center drama around him, they need to find something else to do it with, because I think the drama around Belle is starting to rub raw. Neal, and the Charming/Rumple soap opera would definitely not be enough to keep me interested. Again, is starting to rub raw. I think Neal’s just mediocre. Far as Hook is concerned, he’s why I watch…unless the Wiley Coyote stuff keeps up. If they don’t start plugging some drama in there, then I’m going to get tired of that, too.

I don’t understand how you and so many people who post exact comments like this can just say they’re going to stop watching but plan on tuning in for an episode after a week for one pretty insignificant character. Oh you hate one character out of a show with a huge ensemble so you can’t just sit through the few minutes while he’s on screen. Big deal. I hate Charming but I’m not just gonna quit the show because I dislike one character.
I mean seriously what on Earth is the point. It makes no sense when people say stuff like this. If it was a comedy show where the episodes can be watched out of order fine I understand that but skipping a few episode and watching one later without knowing what happened in the previous ones is just stupid and pointless. You would have missed so much plot development and storylines. If you want to quit the show because you don’t like it…fine, But quitting just because you don’t like a certain stupid ‘ship’ is just dumb in itself and you should do us a favor and find another show to watch. So sick of obsessed shippers!

or you could tune in for the incredibly compelling characters and their development. I dont really ship the show, but I still love it immensely. There are so many wonderful characters and creative storylines to get invested in.

Something I don’t agree with Emma is about her parents choosing what would be best for everyone except her. I mean, if she had been stuck in the curse too, she would probably have been separated from them anyway as The Mad Hatter and his daughter.

Exactly! This “we would have been together” stuff is nonsense. The curse separated practically everyone from the ones they cared about. No way Emma would have been with Mary Margaret or David in Storybrooke, and she would never have been able to get them back together if she was cursed, too.

I think her point is more than she would have rather taken her chances on being cursed with her family than to grow up alone and feeling abandoned by everyone around her. I think it’s more about how hard she had it growing up than it is her not really understanding her parents’ situation. There’s a lot going on inside Emma that we don’t see very often and the obvious pain that she’s lived with for 28 years is never really going to go away for her. I would LOVE to see a scene sometime between Emma & Charming where he tells her what was really going on in their palace after she was born and when the curse was coming so that she can understand it better from their perspective.

Absolutely. I loved those scenes of Emma & Snow in the nursery (still my favorite scenes from teh entire series) and they really haven’t allowed Emma a decent chance of talking to and bonding with Charming the same way they did with Snow yet. I really wanted to see more of the father-daughter dynamic between the two of them once the women got back to SB but we haven’t seen much of that yet. Snow can tell her what happened but Charming lived it through experience so that might affect Emma more knowing her dad nearly sacrificed his own life just to keep her safe.

I’ve never got that argument that Emma could have stayed with Snow and Charming and they sent her away for the greater good, the way it played out to me they were under attack and they gave her her only chance of survival. She could have stayed and died with them but that’s about it… I’m I remembering the episode where they put her in the tree wrong?

I think Emma knows it was the right thing to do( think it was said in 2.03- Lady if the Lake)but she still believes she would of rather been curse and with them, then apart, of course we can assume she didn’t know the specifics of the curse, in which they still would’ve been apart.

I remember it the way you do. They felt it was the only way to save her life. They had no idea the details of the curse, and there were armed soldiers beating down the doors, and apparently killed Charming in the process.

I’m loving this season so much!! I’m rivited by Regina’s arch (I just have so much empathy for her) and I really don’t think Gold is going to hurt Henry. It’ll be his second chance; he abandoned his son, he won’t hurt his grandson.
.
And I like the idea of Emma/Hook. Even if its not long term, that’s a pretty fiery pair.

You do know that Sebastian Stan is out as the Mad Hatter? Might not be the same with the recast role. I wonder if it was Jen who encouraged her boyfriend to go with Broadway? It would be Emma’s fault that the Mad Hatter is being recast! LOL!

Thank you for this!! It brings my Captain Swan’s feelings back to life!
I really love Hook, and since his first episode with Emma, I kind of felt some kind of connection between him and Emma. But I ended so disappointed with what they did to his character (and even more after the last sneak peak). Honestly, they just kept knocking him out, turn him into a pathetic bad guy… and I was soooo sad about that because I think he has some potential. I really think he can become a good guy (except with the Rumple’s deal). And Jennifer Morrison’s words just give me hope! Like she wants us to understand that they plan to do something good with his character. SO YAY I’M HAPPY NOW!!

And I completely understand the anti Captain Swan because for now he seems a little bit to “bad” for Emma. But I’m sure that if they show his good side (the one we saw on the bean or with Aurora’s heart) you MAY change your mind.

But concerning the others spoils, I really want to see how far can Rumple go to save his life (against Henry)

I love OUAT so much, it’s such a fantastic show. Emma is my favorite character and I’ve always felt so bad for her with everyone choosing the greater good over her, but I think Neal also left her, not only for the greater good but to protect himself, which I think is selfish. I don’t see Hook as entirely good or entirely evil (like almost all the characters on the show) In my mind he’s much more the byronic hero, can’t wait to see where their “undeniable connection” leads

And to get her the family he had to send her to jail and, how convenient, for the crime he committed? Yeah right. Nope, sorry, not buying it at all.
I hope Emma tells them both to get lost. She deserves better.

wohooooo he told Emma that if he had known who she was he wouldn’t have went near her, so I think part of him left her to protect himself from his father as well as to set her on her path, I wasn’t trying to Neal bash. Who’s character would it ruin? Morrison just admitted that they’re (emma and hook) it’s too bad you seem to only like the show if it’s your way. I’m going to enjoy the journey regardless of who Emma is with. I said I like hook, I’m interested to see where the writers go with them, I never said they had to be together

I miss the days when tv shows weren’t influenced by online shippers. Shippers are ruining television for everybody else. Why not just let the plot develop organically and leave the shipping to your fan fiction? For me personally, I don’t care if Emma ends up with Hook, Jefferson, Neal, a reanimated Sheriff, Hurley the Giant, Archie, or even Regina. As long as it develops naturally from the writing. No couple should ever, ever be considered “end-game”. It completely ruins the whole point of having a narrative!

You know, what’s being spinning in my mind is that Cora and Rumple seemed to have a past together and I’ve always thought Regina’s father was too nice for being actually her father. I’m starting to believe Regina could be Rumple’s daughter. That would make Henry her nephew. Emma will never share her mother status with the Evil Queen, and I just can’t believe the writers are going to make us believe Regina never loved Henry. They all will have to have a happy ending.

I wanted to like Captain Swan…I did…Part of me still does (Those are the type of relationships I love.) But I just dont like how they potray Hook-the actor is awesome and adorable and physically they would look adroable but…*shrug* I love pirates…dont like him…Which is why I am rooting for Swan Thief/Swan Fire, for now…But as people have said this isnt the type of show that revolves around ship wars and things change so quickly…alliances and whatnot…who knows who will end up with who?

The biggest thing I want to see on the show is Regina throwing off Cora’s influence. It seems two dimensional writing to me that she would fall back into this trap. She once hated her mother enough to exile her through a portal, hopefully to never see her again. Now she is teaming up with Cora to do in the town residents, and giving up on her love for Henry, even when Snow told her that they KNEW she hadn’t killed Jiminy, and basically no longer hunted her or had a grudge. I just hope she gets back to being the Regina on the road to redemption SOON!

It’s really not, though it does deserve more time. She didn’t hate her mother, she was frustrated that her mother was forcing her into a marriage to a man she didn’t want to marry, to be a ‘mother’ to a child who was only a few years younger than her. Banishing Cora was an act of desperation, but as we saw in Queen of Hearts, she couldn’t turn off her love for her mom, and knowing that the only person who cared about her was her abuser, she was willing to take anything at that point.

I love how this article had a lot in it and the only comments are about one sentence about god awful Captain Swan. If that actually happens, I’m quitting the show. It’ll be the Brittana of OUAT for me. No thanks! (I don’t like when shows listen to fans that much for ships.)

I don’t like when shows don’t listen to their fans about anything. I don’t owe that show anything. If they want ratings from people watching, then I’m “people”, and so if they owe anything to anybody, that burden falls on them. Not me.

I can understand your point of view but it’s a bit too much… no? Just for a pairing ? Personally, I really, really don’t like the Rumbelle pairing (nothing against the characters – I like them- I just found the way they fell in love and all really boring…) But there’s a lot of things to look for so I deal with it.
Plus, I’m not sure (even if I’m a Captain Swan shipper) that they could be endgame so, it could be easier for you (because for me… Rumbelle is definitely endgame so I have no other choice XDDD)

On the other end I really look forward to see the Tamara/Neal thing. Hope she’s not gonna be the “Kathryn Nolan”… waiting to be abandoned for Neal’s true love XD

Not the same situation. Tamara and Neal is not a parallel to David and Kathryn because David and Katherine is all about duty to save the kingdom. Neal does not have a duty to Tamara nor are they cursed. He chose to move on, he chose to fall in love and propose marriage to her.

So no not the same situation. There is no comparison whatsoever within the storylines.

Well, I’LL be quitting the show if Neal/Emma becomes a reality. All he has done is show time and time again that he refuses to fight for Emma (getting angry at her about Henry and not telling him was ESPECIALLY rich). Them being together would be a total betrayal of the way they have set up Emma as a character.

I cannot ship Hook and Emma. There doesn’t seem to be any redeemable qualities about him. Yeah he lost Milah, but he wasn’t the nicest guy when we met him. He is a caricature of a villain. Cora is the best villain on the show. Rumplestiltskin and Regina both have redeemable qualities. Hook has never shown any types of remorse or hints that he can be a good guy.

Frankly, his centuries-long obsession with killing Rumple is kind of a red flag. I mean, look at the preview. Yes, nothing says “I care deeply about you” like throwing the woman into the wall so you can stab the old guy through the heart.

That’s not someone you bring around your kid, and I’m glad Jennifer Morrison clarified that Emma isn’t that stupid.

I love how you have no life but to try to respond to comments making no sense at all. If you’re trying to call out Hook/Emma on a shove then you better be willing to cough out Snow/Charming and Rumple/Belle because they have done the same thing. Charming pushed Snow off a horse and Rumple pushed Belle into a cell.

Hook pervertedly flirted Snow in front of Charming. He is so disgusting that would be able to sleep with Emma and Snow at the same time.
If Emma will date Hook, so Once Upon a Time is ending for me. I hope they have great luck with the audience/ratings

Really? The way Hook make sexual innuendos to now i normal…lol… This is not Buffy. They just ruined the show. Hook made ​​sexual innuendos to Snow, in front of Charming. A shame.
Emma with a boyfriend who flirts with her ​​mother.
I hope that Once Upon a Time manages to keep the audience only with Captain Swan fans

Really? The way Hook make sexual innuendos to Snow is normal????????…wow… BIZARRE They just ruined the show. Hook made ​​sexual innuendos to Snow in front of Charming. A shame.
Emma with a boyfriend who flirts with her ​​mother.
I hope that Once Upon a Time manages to keep the audience only with Captain Swan fans

I find the all Neal vs. Hook discussion here pretty funny. In my opinion, it’s obvious who Emma will eventually ‘end up with’. You have to remember that the creators of this show were previously writers on Lost. So let’s look at Lost. Hook is so obviously Sawyer: the chemistry with the leading lady and a bad boy mantra but underneath he’s a softy. Whereas Neal is obviously Jack: serious daddy issues that effect everything he does and an up and down past with the leading lady (including even sharing a son). Plus, I think eventually, Neal will even end up being a reluctant leader for our band of fairy tale characters, just like Rumple ‘should have been’, according to his wife. There will be some Emma and Hook, ‘hooking up’, just like there was Kate/Sawyer. However, it might take five more seasons, but my bet is it’s going to end up being Neal and Emma.

Pretty sure Snow and Charming are the lead couple on this show which was Jack and Kate on Lost. Not to mention Jack and Kate were there since the beginning. Neal is a GUEST STAR, so contracts alone that’s not gonna happen.

We don’t even know if Neal will even be in S3 where as Hook is a series regular officially.

I disagree about Snow/Charming being the main couple. They definitely are main characters, but Emma is their Savior, she has been from the beginning, and I believe she’ll be the key to the whole enchilada by the end. She is the Jack of Lost.

Except in the end Wendy and Peter did not end up together. So what exactly are you trying to imply, because it doesn’t work that way. Wendy chose to grow up as an adult over an eternal childhook with Peter.

Bae might be Peter, but Wendy would just be someone from his past who maybe told him about this realm and peaked his interest to get here. When he got here, if Wendy was alive, she was very old. Meanwhile, Peter had spent years in Neverland playing/fighting with Hook – which is why thy know each other. If Bae isn’t Peter, then he’s a lost boy Peter found “here” on one of his journeys to listen to stories – Eventually Bae decided to return here and grow up, so 300 missing years solved. Now that I think about it, I don’t think Bae is Peter. I think Peter may still be out there and may take Henry because with the fight between the adults (and stories his dad tells) he may feel he would rather be a lost boy. Then Bae and Emma and (Regina if her head is together) would need Hook and his ship to travel to Neverland to get Henry back.

It’s crazy but after Manhattan episode I’m not as much interested in ouat couples as I was before even though if I was Emma I would never end up with Hook. I would be with Neal but only if Graham wasn’t dead. :((
Now I just want to see Rumple as much as it’s possible and I really would like his character to be kind of redeemed. The same thing goes for Regina. But if it’s not what writers want I’m o.k. with their stories as long as it’s interesting. And Robert I want to thank you for everything you are. I don’t know if I would like Rumple the same way if you didn’t play his character so perfectly. I’m going to watch all your movies :)

Guys, don’t compare characters here to characters from completely other shows. Every story has its own legend.
Anyways, I really like the idea of Hook & Emma. I know a lot of people say he’s a villain, but the writers/actors have already told us he is actually, right now, an anti-hero, which is not the same thing. Hook has a good hope for redemption- if Regina and Rumplestiltskin do, who are far more gone than he, why shouldn’t Hook? And I think that Emma will help him get there. Just like how Belle is there for Rumple, to bring out the good in him. This show is full of parallels, and there are quite a few Hook&Emma/Snowing ones. I don’t really want to list all of them right now, but they’re easily found on YT and the Captain Swan tag on Tumblr.

The entire show is made up of parallels. Regina and Hook’s stories parallel up pretty close, Regina and Emma, Emma and Neal, Charming and Regina. Arguments can be made for Regina/Emma, Emma/Graham, Emma/Neal and a variety of others based on ‘parallels’ to Snow/Charming.

Um you are so wrong it’s not even funny. There is no parallels whatsoever between Emma/Neal and Snow/Charming. There is however parallels between Emma/Neal and Milah/Rumple. They even said the SAME line in the past episode. I swear if you bring up The Dreamcatcher as a parallel you will so get eaten alive because that is not a parallel and every single time Emma is near a dream catcher bad stuff always happens. She needs to stay AWAY from those things.

Here’s the thing that is driving me nuts! Did they forget that she & Sheriff Graham/the Huntsman had a CONNECTION?! Are the FORGETTING about that?! Okay, yes, he is dead [Wahhh, such a likeable guy. :(], but still!!! I think that should factor into the story as well… It seems that they are completely dropping the first half of the season on which the whole series was based on!

Thanks so much. Jennifer was amazing in Manhattan. Emmy worthy. I love Emma and Neal. I’m rooting for them. But also I love Jennifer’s point of people making decisions for Emma or about Emma. Never asking what she wants, what her choice is, what her home is. I still don’t understand why Neal couldn’t stay with her and help her break the curse. I’m guessing he chose to run from Rumple and listen to August blindly.

Thanks so much for the interview. I enjoy and agree with JMO’s take on Emma and her reasons for not trusting or forgiving quickly. Besides the theif thing I don’t get the Hook and Emma comparisons. He truly is pathetic and like the coyote chasing the road runner. It is comical. If Emma had to have a fling or connection, I would get Jefferson more than Hook. Disappointing that Sebastian Stan is not available to explore that season one chemistry

I don’t understand the push to make Hook a romantic figure. I get that the actor’s attractive – I thought he was an adorable character when he was in “The Tudors” as Princess Mary’s (the same girl who plays Aurora) suitor – but this interpretation of Hook does not charm me. Even if you take out all the things that the audience saw him do that Emma knows nothing about – such as humiliate and beat up a handicapped stranger, let Rumple think that his wife was being used as a sex slave, punch an imprisoned woman in the face and try to kill her, try to kill the same woman again in Storybrooke – Emma still knows he shot Belle. Even if she magically healed, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t shoot her. From the sneak preview, Emma witnesses him stabbing Rumple in the chest, and will soon hear that Hook is also Bae’s enemy. Plus, it’s not like he’s a firefighter bent on revenge. He’s a pirate. Looting, pillaging, destroying property, that’s his whole identity. I feel that if the show makes a romantic match out of Emma and Hook, it not only means that I would lose all respect for the Emma character, it would also mean that the writers have lost respect for her and for the audience.

Absolutely. It wouldn’t make sense with who Capt Hook really is at his core and it would be an injustice to Emma’s character. But, like I said below, I could see them using Hook as a device for Emma to make Neal jealous or even to taunt Rumple some more by seducing Belle. Hook is good at being a player and the crazed, vindictive, irrational narcissist and murderer, not the hero.

Bae is just one of the lost boys. It would be too huge of a change in Peter Pan’s character. Peter Pan is the one boy who never grows up. The writers have even said that Peter Pan is not coming this season. They could kill Hook off by Rumple, since Captain Hook is eaten by the crocodile…I could see Emma using Hook as a one night stand just to get back at Neal for breaking her heart, but nothing serious. I could see Hook seducing Belle since her memory is gone to get back @ Rumple some more. They could totally put Emma with someone we haven’t even met yet since we are actually watching her fairy tale unfold. I would certainly like to see Regina triumph over her mother in some big battle since she was manipulated to become evil in the first place. Cora could still meet her evil end. Belle has to get her happy ending, so Rumple has to be redeemed somehow unless they give her another beast to fall in love with.

Who knows? Maybe Bae will die which would kind of force Rumple into not killing him cuz Henry would be Bae to him. He won’t make that same mistake again. His love for Bae would cause him to love Henry also. Henry has the strength of love in his heart that he got from his mother. Love is supposed to be the strongest thing in the universe. I could totally see Rumple’s redemption n undoing as the Dark One lying in there.

First Spike and now Sawyer? Omigosh I’m begging you people to stop. They are two of my favorite fictional bad boys of all time, and Hook doesn’t hold a candle to either of them. They were well realized anti-heroes (in Spike’s case, an actual villain) whom we saw almost immediately had complicated depths. Hook is a bully with a heart of more bully, and has always been a bully. Sawyer claimed he was an outlaw who cared for nothing and nobody, but he actually tried to protect underdogs and innocents. Hook claims he’s a gentleman, yet he victimizes cripples, beggars, and prisoners. When in the pursuit of his revenge, Sawyer accidentally killed an innocent person, he was devastated and guilty and self-loathing; when Hook deliberately destroyed an innocent person, he was proud. In their very first flashbacks, we saw that Sawyer had some compassion and a line he wouldn’t cross when he quit a con because it would have ruined some random kid’s life; while Hook was more than happy to jaunt off with Milah and ruin baby!Bae’s life. As for Spike, if anyone on this show is Spike, it’s Rumpel. Originally a sweet, sensitive person who is bullied by their loved ones? Check. Gets a superpower upgrade accompanied by a new evil personality? Check. Does evil with sass and style? Check. Still capable of deep love despite said evil copilot? Check. Falls for brave heroine whom he thinks dies, and on her resurrection *makes the decision* despite all his instincts to try to be a better man for her and eventually becomes a hero…? Well…Rumpel isn’t anywhere near there yet, but we can hope.

Emma needs a fighter in her life, someone who is willing tio fight for her, and by her side… who puts her first and chooses her, and finds her……

Which all points to Hook!!!! This man has always gona for what he wants, even after so many years he is still after Rumpel, and it doesnt even matter what could happen to him – he wants revenge, what else does he have left in his life….. Hook needs to find a reason to live and hope again

Emma and Hook can be so much more!!!! they are both fierce and fighters!!!!!!!! Thats thats the kind of man Emma needs!!!

Are you kidding me?? Hook is Captain Hook of Peter Pan’s story. He’s the villain that kills children for sport. He is always looking out for number one…that’s a pirate’s code. Granted, when we see Dustin Hoffman playing the part of Capt Hook, we all adore him, even in his imperfections, but we still want Peter to triumph over him and to see him get his comeuppance by being eaten by the crocodile at the end. They’ve made this Cap Hook more like a Jack Sparrow character…but that’s not the classic character we know…he is still predominantly the evil Capt Hook at his core. Belle hit that spot on. The writers have definitely given us enough foreshadowing to see where their leaning with these characters. No….Emma doesn’t deserve that for her or her son…no matter what chemistry they have. She deserves better. She needs a man that will put his family first not himself. Capt Hook’s character is a predominantly self-centered one. His heart is expected to only get colder and be pushed into becoming the more callous Capt Hook that kills kids without any remorse that we know. If they don’t “heal” Emma’s family unit with Bae by the fifth season’s end, they’ll definitely put her with someone more reliable and true that she can count on and actually trust…her “prince charming” so to speak and it won’t be with the villainous Capt Hook …that’s a fairy tale ending, which is what the show is about…

This show is never cut-and-dry paralell to what we think we know about the characters we grew up with in our fairy tales. That said, exactly when in this show, did Captain Hook ever kill a child, much less any mention made of when he did? Never. I think we’ll find out that a lot of Captain Hook’s history will have been found in “exagerations”, rather than fact.

I would like to leave a question for Matt Mitovich, if you’re still taking any..

If you would be so kind as to ask the show’s producers the following:

Hypothetically speaking, if the leads were gender swapped so that it was Queen Regina and Emmett Swan or King Regis and Emma Swan, wouldn’t the show’s producers and writers admit that there are a lot of interesting parallels and similarities between the characters which would merit consideration of them as a potential future couple?

(This is clearly a SwanQueen question, but I think it deserves an answer.)